Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Will my GNWL/PQWL/RAC train ticket get confirmed ? Two Indian websites predict from your PNR

Travelling by train in India is a unique experience. Indian railways is one of the largest emplyers in Asia with thousands of people running the show. But the website for booking Indian train tickets is still not good enough. In fact, the current edition of the website is the best it has ever become, the earlier website was so hopelessly difficult to navigate and always slow.

Indian railways always gets overbooked and many people cancel their tickets, allowing those in the waiting list to get confirmed tickets. But playing this game of lottery to get tickets is not an option for most people.

Here are two websites(not run by the Indian railways), made by smart Indian youth which predict whether your ticket will become confirmed by the date of your train journey.

One is TrainMan.in , made by an IIT Roorkee graduate, Amir Mohammad. He made the website collect data from IRCTC on ticket status and later confirmation status and using this data, the website does statistical analysis to predict your chances of getting a confirmation of your ticket.

Its algorithm can predict your likelihood of getting a confirmed ticket. Amir claims his predictions have an 85% accuracy record.

Wait-listed travellers have to enter their PNR number (passenger name record), which is generated after they book a train ticket on the Indian Railways website, and Trainman calculates their odds of getting confirmed passage.

Steps to use trainman:
Visit the official site trainman.in from your internet enabled computer
Enter “To” and “From” railway station name in proper window
Enter your journey date
Select your class and quota
Click on “find trains” button
You will get whole list of trains with ticket availability percentage
Other way – To know chances of getting confirmed ticket, enter your PNR number and click on “get status” button to check status of your ticket.

Pros:
24×7 site to find out ticket availability
Offers real time information
Number of train option with ticket availability is available to book tickets
Free of cost searching for ticket availability

Cons:
Only one option to search ticket availabilities with the departure and arrival destination i.e. no direct search for particular train

Anything above 65% implies a high chance of confirmation. On the other hand, if the chances are below 50%, the website advises travellers to not hold their breath and try an alternative train or travel option. If users are looking for trains, Trainman helps them decide if they should book a waiting ticket or not, by predicting the confirmation chances.

pnr predictor is a free online tool to instantly predict final charting status. using our unique algorithm we can predict whether the waiting list ticket you have will get confirmed or not. All you need to provide is a valid pnr number. We after analyzing the current status will look at historical data and predict whether your ticket will get confirmed or not.

Currently PNR.ME system recognizes rac to be a valid ticket and hence if the system feels your ticket will fall under rac, it will predict as if your ticket is getting confirmed

Use both the websites to be sure.

What does WL/RAC/GNWL/PQWL etc mean ?

Waiting List (WL): If the passenger status is marked as WL followed by a number then the passenger has a waitlisted status. This can get confirm only if the passengers who have booked before you for the same journey cancel their ticket. For example if the status is GNWL 4 / WL 3 , then this means that you have a waiting list of 3 (the latter number) and your ticket will get confirmed only if 3 passengers who have booked before you for the same journey happen to cancel their journey. Similarly, GNWL/AVAILABLE means that current status of your ticket is CONFIRMED because some passengers who booked before you have cancelled their tickets.

Waiting list can be of various types:

GNWL: General Waiting List (GNWL) waitlisted tickets are issued when the passenger begins his/her journey at the originating station of a route or stations close to the originating station. This is most common type of waiting list and has got the highest chances of confirmation.

RLWL: Remote Location Waiting List (RLWL) means ticket is issued for intermediate stations (between the originating and terminating stations) because usually these are the most important towns or cities on that particular route. This type of tickets will be given a separate priority and confirmations will depend on the cancellations of a destination confirmed ticket. Remote location stations prepare there own chart 2-3 hours before the actual departure of train. For this type of ticket there are less chances of confirmation.

PQWL: A Pooled Quota Waiting List (PQWL) is shared by several small stations. Pooled Quotas normally operate only from the originating station of a route, and there is only one Pooled Quota for the entire run. The Pooled Quota is generally allotted for passengers travelling from the originating station to a station short of the terminating station, or from an intermediate station to the terminating station, or between two intermediate stations.

RLGN: Remote Location General Waiting List (RLGN) is issued when a user books a ticket where WL quota is RLWL. This means after ticket booking RLWL gets named as RLGN.

RSWL: Roadside Station Waiting List (RSWL) is allotted when berths or seats are booked by the originating station for journeys up to the road-side station and distance restrictions may not apply. This waiting list has also very less chances of confirmation.

RQWL: If a ticket is to be booked from an intermediate station to another intermediate station, and if it is not covered by the general quota or by the remote location quotas or pooled quota, the request for the ticket may go into a Request Waiting List (RQWL).

CKWL or Tatkal waiting list: For tatkal tickets, the waiting list issued is CKWL. If tatkal ticket goes up, it directly gets confirmed and doesn’t go through RAC status unlike GNWL. During chart preparation, general waiting list (GNWL) is preferred over tatkal waiting list (CKWL) therefore tatkal waitlisted tickets are less likely to get confirmed. Follow these tatkal booking tips to get a confirmed tatkal ticket.

If you have booked a waiting ticket or you are deciding whether to book a ticket where current status is waiting, then check your chances of confirmation i.e. ticket will get confirmed or not.

Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC): If a user has been issued an RAC ticket, then most likely his ticket will get confirmed by the time of chart preparation and he will get a berth. In case the ticket remains RAC even after chart preparation (if the coach number is preceded by R i.e. RB1, 31 means RAC seat no 31 in coach B1), then user is allotted a half berth (seat) i.e. two persons having RAC ticket status are allotted one side-lower berth. The TTE is obligated to allot berths which are cancelled after chart preparation to these RAC passengers.

Confirmed (CNF): In this case the passenger gets a full berth for the journey. In case of first AC (1A), the passenger may not get berth details even for confirmed ticket when ticket is issued. This is because the berth allotment for this class is done manually by the TTE on chart preparation.

Another innovation - Check PNR status on Whatsapp !

Whatsapp finally has some use now. Some genius has made a Whatsapp account that responds to various queries.

Called WhatsHash, you just have to add the number in your contacts and send a message with the required hashtag(#pnr)